Noticing Quotes

“Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you to see what you're looking at more clearly. Did you know that?"
I said nothing.
"What colour's a blackbird?" she said.
"Black"
"Typical!”
― David Almond, Skellig

“I had stopped my chair at that exact place, coming out, because right there the spice of wisteria that hung around the house was invaded by the freshness of apple blossoms in a blend that lifted the top of my head. As between those who notice such things and those who don't, I prefer those who do.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

“In the first place, you can't see anything from a car.”
― ed abbey

“The off curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor.

Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing.

It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts.

He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.”
― Holly Black, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“When existence reveals itself as existentially intolerable, thinking collapses in on itself. In such situations—in the depths—it's noticing, not thinking, that does the trick.”
― Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

“I myself have the ability to do repetitive tasks, or stare into space for long periods of time without feeling the least bit bored. There is always something going on if one looks hard enough. Tiny dramas unfold all around us. Intellectuals like Veronica are oblivious to this, however. They are too busy thinking to notice anything.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“The aesthetics aren't merely a side note, they're as important as anything else.”
― Sylvain Neuvel, Sleeping Giants

“I wanted people to notice me...but at the same time, I wanted to be left alone.”
― Natsuki Takaya, Fruits Basket Collector's Edition, Vol. 5

“Everything is a science. Science is just paying attention and sorting out the rules already in place.”
― William Ritter, The Dire King

“All there is to thinking, he said, is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

“The day I no longer walk through the forest with wonder, is the day I no longer belong to this earth.”
― Jess Starwood, Mushroom Wanderland: A Forager's Guide to Finding, Identifying, and Using More Than 25 Wild Fungi

“In the country, there are unseen eyes and ears everywhere. They may not be many in number, but they are highly perceptive. That’s what happens when you live in a quiet environment. You notice everything.”
― Donna Goddard, Nanima: Spiritual Fiction

“The odd curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor.

Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing.

It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts.

He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.”
― Holly Black, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Once it had been second nature to savour the contrast of new grass against dark, tilled soil, or an amethyst brooch nestled in folds of emerald silk; once I'd dreamed and breathed and thought in colour and light and shape. Sometimes I would even indulge in envisioning a day when my sisters were married and it was only me and Father, with enough food to go around, enough money to buy some paint, and enough time to put those colours and shapes down on paper and canvas or the cottage walls.

Not likely to happen anytime soon- perhaps ever. So I was left with moments like this, admiring the glint of pale winter light on snow. I couldn't remember the last time I'd done it- bothered to notice anything lovely or interesting.

Stolen hours in a decrepit barn with Issac Hale didn't count; those times were hungry and empty and sometimes cruel, but never lovely.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“How like her, though, just to stand and stare at the jets hitting the water. She loved to notice things. Had taught Judith how to be still in a world that moved too quick. "We're not mice," she used to say. "There's no need to scurry.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Night Side of the River

“and who knows what oversensitive is, considering all there is to be sensitive to.”
― William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

“We tend to look only on one side of God’s blessing, without noticing the other side of the coin”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Do you want this thought to be creating your future? Just notice and be aware.”
― Louise L. Hay

“When after hearing or reading instructions on how to set the mind on an object of meditation, you initially draw the mind inside and try to put it there, it may be that you will not be able to keep your mind on the object and will be subject to a waterfall of thoughts, one after another. If so, you are on the first level. You may even have so many thoughts that it seems as if trying to meditate makes them increase, but you are just noticing the previously unidentified extent of your own ramblings. Your attempts at mindfulness are causing you to notice what is happening.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, How to See Yourself As You Really Are

“All this impressive physiology produces more than mere flight. The hawk dances on air. In just ten seconds, she stopped a rapid dive, rose vertically while turning, swept in a new direction, flapped upward, and curved into a rising arc, ending with a stall that parked her feet directly over a maple branch. The precision and beauty of bird flight is so familiar that our wonder is jaded. We should be frozen in amazement at the cardinal landing on the feeder or the sparrow banking around cars in a parking lot. Instead, we walk by as if an animal pirouetting on air were unremarkable, even mundane. The hawk's dramatic rise over the mandala's center jolts me out of dullness, pulling away the blinding layers of familiarity.”
― David George Haskell, The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature

“Virgil was not a man to take time to look at the stars, not when he might miss a nickel on the ground in the process.”
― John Connolly, The White Road

“Feelings are physiological messages, aka interoception--very simply, messages from your brain tracking your body's physical and emotional state.
With this feedback on how I was doing, I got better at taking care of myself. And I felt less like I had to control things, because I didn't have to anticipate everything: I could just notice things as they happened.”
― Allyson Dinneen, Notes From Your Therapist

“It occurred to me that losing one thing is way more difficult than losing everything, you noticed?”
― Ryan Gelpke, Peruvian Nights

“Life is not just about moving forward; it’s about noticing what’s been there all along... waiting to be seen”
― AshRawArt

“The moment I noticed everything is the moment I lost my smile.”
― Zaki Guutaale(Zaki1148)

“That kind of deep attention that we pay as children is something that I cherish, that I think we all can cherish and reclaim, because attention is that doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity. And it worries me greatly that today’s children can recognize one hundred corporate logos and fewer than ten plants.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer

“Every stem has its story. Behind each stem, a rhythm grows”
― Penelope Elowen, Let The Petals Fall: A novel of grief, love, and the Garden that changed everything

“Life is punctuated by big, memorable events... But most of our days are built from the seemingly ordinary moments in between . ... When we rush from milestone to milestone, we often treat these spaces as filler, something to get through on the way to somewhere more important. Yet these inbetween moments are where much of our life happens, and they have their own kind of magic”
― Ajmal, from the book "Borders of the Inner World"

“When we overlook them, life can start to feel like a series of disjointed highlights rather than a cloth spun with continuous thread. There is also opportunity in the spaces between. They are pockets of time where we can breathe, reflect and be present. ... Appreciating these spaces requires a shift in perspective. It asks us to stop viewing them as barriers to better things. It invites us to be curious about the quiet”
― Ajmal, from the book "Borders of the Inner World"

“We are surrounded by miracles too common to notice. Think of the intricate patterns on a butterfly’s wing... or the way a seed split open becomes a tree. We often overlook these marvels because we are distracted by busier, louder things. ... Yet the capacity for wonder lives inside us; we just need to look closely”
― Ajmal, from the book "Borders of the Inner World"